- Brazil: Bolsonaro launches presidential bid despite challenges
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Flavio Bolsonaro on Saturday formally launched his campaign for Brazil’s October presidential election, seeking to extend his family’s grip on the country’s far-right movement despite a series of scandals that have dented his once-strong challenge to incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. … Far-right firebrand Jair Bolsonaro anointed his eldest son, a senator, as his successor after being sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup following his loss to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s 2022 election.” (07/25/26)
- UK: Burnham vows no early general election before 2029
Source: Metro [UK]
“Andy Burnham has ruled out calling an early general election and said he will ‘honour’ Keir Starmer’s manifesto. The new Prime Minister insisted he ‘faced the public’ in the Makerfield by-election and had a mandate for his sweeping changes to the country. Burnham was speaking after a busy first week in the top job, during which he pledged to roll out the biggest changes the UK has seen in four years. … Burnham’s vow means the country should not face a general election until 2029, five years after Keir Starmer swept to power in 2024. There had been speculation that the new PM would want to go to the polls after he wiped out Reform’s poll leader almost immediately after entering No 10.” (07/26/26)
https://metro.co.uk/2026/07/26/andy-burnham-vows-no-early-general-election-2029-29225911/
- Tunisians mark fifth year of emergency rule with calls for Saied to go
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Thousands of Tunisians have rallied in the capital to demand the resignation of President Kais Saied, denouncing worsening living conditions, democratic backsliding and mismanagement of the state. Crowds marched down Habib Bourguiba Avenue in central Tunis on Saturday as the country marked five years since Saied declared a national emergency, suspended parliament and later dissolved it in order to rule by decree. It’s the latest in a run of recent protests opposing crackdowns on dissent, a struggling economy and limits on press freedoms. Saied’s opponents accused him of abusing emergency measures to institute a reversal of Tunisia’s hard-won democratic transition process.” (07/26/26)
- FBI says alleged $32 million COVID-19 fraud fugitive captured in Jamaica and returned to US
Source: Fox News
“One of the FBI’s most wanted alleged COVID-19 fraud fugitives has been returned to the United States after authorities captured her in Jamaica. FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital she had been living under the fake identity ‘Harley Newman’ while evading charges tied to an alleged $32 million pandemic relief fraud scheme. Elaine Angene Escoe, 41, arrived back in South Florida Thursday after Jamaican authorities arrested her after a federal manhunt. Prosecutors allege she helped fraudulently obtain more than $32 million in taxpayer-funded COVID-19 relief funds before fleeing the country after failing to appear in federal court.” (07/25/26)
- Germany: Suspect in deadly Berlin Pride attack is killed in confrontation with police
Source: Associated Press
“The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said. Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. Prosecutors said he had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group. Ballout was suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival Saturday night before apparently stabbing others with a machete in what authorities believe was an Islamic extremist terror attack.” (07/26/26)
- OpenAI launches health bot a day after frivolous lawsuit says ChatGPT advice hospitalized a man
Source: SFGate
“Scott Winters was having dizzy spells but decided not to see a doctor after ChatGPT told him it would take several more serious episodes before he would need care. Instead, it recommended he lounge in a recliner. But weeks later, Winters would find himself being wheeled into an emergency room, convulsing and slipping in and out of consciousness, suffering from multiple blood clots in his lungs. … Winters is now suing ChatGPT maker OpenAI for not only providing unlicensed medical advice but also actively discouraging Winters from seeing a doctor. … Just one day after Winters filed his complaint, the company publicly released ChatGPT Health, a model based on a later version of ChatGPT, designed to interpret intimate medical records and give users health guidance.” (07/25/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/chatgpt-health-lawsuit-22359513.php
- US regime lifts ban on cattle imports from Mexico
Source: United Press International
“The Department of Agriculture on Friday lifted a ban on cattle imports from Mexico that had been in place to contain the spread of a parasite threatening U.S. livestock. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said Douglas, Ariz., would be the first port of entry to be open on Aug. 24. All cattle imports from Mexico were halted by the Biden administration in November 2024, when the first cases of the flesh-eating New World screwworm were detected in the south of the country.” (07/25/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/07/25/cattle-imports/4011785017761/
- Federal appeals court rejects Trump bid to enforce mail ballot order ahead of midterm elections
Source: New York Post
“A federal appeals court on Saturday refused to let the Trump administration enforce key parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order [attempting to rig] mail-in voting rules in 23 Democratic-led states, a setback that could send the administration to the US Supreme Court ahead of this year’s midterm elections. In a 2-1 decision, the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) request to pause a June ruling blocking several provisions of Trump’s March executive order while the administration appeals. The DOJ previously told the court it could seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court if it did not prevail. The administration argued the lawsuit was premature because federal agencies had not finalized the policies needed to implement the executive order.” (07/26/26)
- New Jersey Highlights the Problems with, and the Evils of, Automatic Voter Registration
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“State ‘motor voter’ laws — especially those which, like New Jersey’s, automatically register people who interact with the license bureau to vote, only later allowing them to opt out — don’t just risk inaccuracies like those produced by this episode, they abandon a key element in any supposed democracy: Consent. When you beg the state of New Jersey for a driver’s license, government ID card, etc., the bureaucrat behind the counter doesn’t request your permission to add your name to yet another database and co-opt you as a ‘member of the electorate.’ It just happens without so much as a ‘by your leave.’ … If someone signed your name on a legal contract you didn’t agree to or a petition you didn’t agree with, you’d be angry — and you’d be right.” (07/26/26)
- Judges Can Void a Tariff. They Can’t Rebuild Our Reputation.
Source: The Daily Economy
by David Hebert“[I]n the span of a week, the White House effectively told Canada, our closest trading partner and ally, that America’s word means nothing and then told them that they are complicit in forced labor. … Then we set a penalty that just so happens to approximate the Section 122 tariffs that just expired. Foreign officials must now contend with an even clearer reality: not only is an agreement with the United States not worth the paper it’s printed on, but we will accuse you of horrendous practices if it means that an administration can re-impose tariffs.” (07/24/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/judges-can-void-a-tariff-they-cant-rebuild-our-reputation/
- “Revenge Mode” As “Strategy?”
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan“Regime change failed, of course. Worse: the mullahs’ regime hardened and gained confidence from successfully resisting the might of America’s war machine. The US watched helplessly as Iran instantly blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, and couldn’t prevent them from hitting the Gulf states, Israel, and Jordan with what seems like a robust supply of missiles. So we were almost instantly exposed, humiliated, checkmated. The MOU was a recognition of this, but it postponed all the hard stuff and was so vaguely drafted that it soon fell apart. The only clear result of the war is therefore Iran’s control of the strait and enhanced leverage over the gulf. So what now? Escalation to get out of this? That appears to be a live possibility. The president is now in ‘revenge mode,’ we’re told — which is, of course, an emotion, not a strategy.” (07/24/26)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/revenge-mode-as-strategy-a54
- Afghan Lessons for American Democracy
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by James Bovard“After Al Qaeda terrorists used Afghanistan for training bases for the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan and quickly routed the Taliban government. President George W. Bush boasted that U.S. troops brought freedom and democracy to Afghanistan. But rather than democracy, the United States brought Hamid Karzai, an oil pipeline lobbyist who was expected to slavishly follow U.S. orders.” (07/24/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/afghan-lessons-for-american-democracy/
- The MAGA “Anchor Baby” Myth Doesn’t Hold Water
Source: The UnPopulist
by Steve Chapman“Why birth tourism should bother the president and his supporters is a bit of a puzzle. Americans who oppose immigration often allege that foreigners who migrate here take jobs, drive up housing prices, sponge off taxpayer-provided benefits, congregate in clannish enclaves, and implant alien religions and customs. So you would think the critics would take a benign view of foreigners who come briefly and immediately leave, interacting with hardly anyone and paying their own way before vanishing like footprints on an ocean beach. The longstanding complaint is that this option allows their citizen children—’anchor babies,’ as they are misleadingly called—to sponsor parents for legal admission to the U.S. But kids can’t do that until they reach the age of 21, and after they do, the process of securing green cards can take a full decade.” (07/25/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-maga-anchor-baby-myth-doesnt
- The surveillance camera on your street corner: Lawful spying or constitutionally problematic?
Source: Fox News
by Kerri Kupec Urbahn“The cameras that scan your car on your commute to work have quietly become one of the most widespread surveillance tools in America. They record vehicle sightings, feed searchable databases and, when agencies choose to share data, can connect searches across jurisdictional lines. Recent courts have upheld the particular ALPR networks before them, but they have left open whether a denser, more revealing system could cross the constitutional line.” (07/24/26)
- Is Ayn Rand’s Philosophy Consistent with Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics?
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Dr. Edward W Younkins“The similarities between Rand and Aristotle are substantial. Both hold that ethics is grounded in a conception of human nature and that the good life consists in the fulfillment of that nature. For Aristotle, eudaimonia is the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue; for Rand, happiness is the state of consciousness that proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. Both identify reason as the distinctive human capacity and the foundation of virtue. For Aristotle, the rational part of the soul is what distinguishes humans from other animals; for Rand, ‘reason is man’s basic means of survival’. Both conceive of virtue as a kind of excellence in functioning—the excellent exercise of one’s human capacities. … Despite these deep affinities, important differences separate Rand from Aristotle.” (07/25/26)
https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/07/is-ayn-rands-philosophy-consistent-with.html
- A Curious Hospital Argument
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Elias Tsapelas“Everyone agrees that health care costs too much. The disagreements start when we have to decide who should receive less money. That’s a big reason why warnings about Medicaid ‘cuts’ often receive so much attention. But the latest claims from Missouri hospitals about the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) cuts hurting rural hospitals deserve a closer look. At first glance, the concern seems straightforward. Since the government is the single largest purchaser of health care in the country, hospitals operating on thin margins could understandably struggle if they were paid less by Medicare or Medicaid. The first question, though, is what exactly is being cut. The OBBB does not reduce the payment rates hospitals receive for treating Medicare patients or Medicaid patients who remain eligible. Instead, it implements community engagement requirements for some able-bodied Medicaid enrollees beginning next year …” (07/24/26)
https://showmeinstitute.org/article/health-care/a-curious-hospital-argument/
- The Saudi Nuclear Deal Is a Typical Trump Fiasco
Source: The Nation
by Jeet Heer“The deal as initially described would allow Saudi Arabia to achieve its long-standing goal of having the US greenlight and assist in its civilian nuclear program without having to make any of the compromises that had previously prevented an agreement. … But within 24 hours, the landmark deal was already starting to unravel. The New York Times reported that the deal was ‘in doubt’ because Trump had ‘added a new condition to the sale of nuclear reactors to the kingdom, declaring that the entire arrangement now depends on the Saudi willingness to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.’ This was a typical Trump negotiating tactic: pulling the rug out from someone after proclaiming a done deal.” (07/24/26)
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-saudi-nuclear-deal-analysis/
- Is training AI on copyrighted materials protected by the First Amendment?
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Tyler Tone“Much like the information gleaned from reverse engineering Sega’s copyrighted software, the patterns an AI model learns are not necessarily copyrighted works. Copyright protects an author’s particular expression, not the broader relationships among words, concepts, themes, or writing techniques that readers — or even AI models — may learn and deploy from it.” (07/24/26)
https://www.fire.org/news/training-ai-copyrighted-materials-protected-first-amendment
- Sorry, haters, Christopher Nolan’s Odysseus is no wimp — but a hero for our times
Source: New York Post
by Rich Lowry“Was Odysseus, the legendary Greek warrior, actually a wimp? The most trenchant criticisms of Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster movie ‘The Odyssey’ involve how he portrays the hero of the tale. In the original, Odysseus is a clever, multifaceted hero who comes up with the idea for the Trojan horse and then, after the Greeks win the decade-long war with Troy, embarks on his arduous journey home to Ithaca and his waiting wife Penelope. Now, it’s true that Nolan modernizes Odysseus for a contemporary audience, but what was he supposed to do? If he’d given us the 100% Homeric Odysseus — abducting women, slaughtering unarmed people, sleeping around with nymphs, ordering the execution of housemaids — there’d be little chance that movie-goers would be interested in shelling out to see a 3-hour movie about his adventures and travails.” (07/24/26)
- A Tale of Two Revolutions
Source: Law & Liberty
by Luke Foster“Pierre de Beaumarchais is a forgotten hero of the American Revolution—and a victim of the French.” (07/24/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/a-tale-of-two-revolutions/
- De-Normalize Israel
Source: Caitlin Johnstone
by Caitlin Johnstone“Basically we’ve got two choices: we either aggressively denormalize Israel or we watch our society become more and more Israeli. We either collectively reject Israel, or we watch western militaries fuse inseparably with the IDF. We either turn support for Israel into political campaign poison, or we watch politicians obliterate our right to criticize Israel while backing increasingly evil Israeli military agendas. We either ferociously oppose our government’s involvement in middle eastern wars, or we watch Israeli leaders grow more and more ecstatic as more and more western blood and treasure flows into the war machine.” (07/25/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/07/25/de-normalize-israel/
- Andy Burnham Takes the Stage
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott“On July 20, Andy Burnham attended Buckingham Palace, where King Charles III invited him to form a government—making him Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade. Burnham is nicknamed ‘the King of the North,’ inspired by the Game of Thrones series and also speaks to his extremely popular tenure as mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. As a politician, he reflects all of the establishment’s trusted elements and very little of its baggage. Having served as a minister in Blair’s government and won three landslide re-elections since becoming Manchester’s mayor, Burnham has managed to avoid the scandals associated with the Labour Party of the last two decades while building a prominent personal brand—and has cast a shadow over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership as a result.” (07/24/26)
- The New Vandals
Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Elrod“Complaints about Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ are mainly complaints about what does and doesn’t count as Western, as manly, and as heroic art. And those complaints are about maintaining a highly circumscribed and prejudiced boundary of American identity downstream of a facile, vulgar conception of the ancient ‘West.’ It’s worth stressing—if, somehow, it hasn’t been stressed enough—that many of America’s right-wing nationalists view the United States as a culmination of a fancifully idealized Western culture. … what matters more here is who is seen as capable of making history. It’s certainly not women, and it’s absolutely not non-whites.” (07/25/26)
- With Saudi Arabia, Another Inferior Nuclear Deal
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“Once again, Mr. ‘Art of the Deal’ underperforms his predecessors.” (07/24/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/saudi-arabia-nuclear-deal-trump/
- Getting Unemployment Insurance Back to Work
Source: The Daily Economy
by Thomas Savidge‘The pandemic exposed weaknesses that had accumulated over decades.” (07/24/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/getting-unemployment-insurance-back-to-work/
- Our Currency Icons and America’s National Character
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Charles Goyette“In what is the monetary equivalent of tearing down statues, the British have decided they must replace iconic images on their currency. Out of an apparent fear of offending the stampede of human beings who have chosen to abandon their own homelands to live in Great Britain, the historic images on British currency of people instrumental in making that nation what it is, have been forced to yield to images of animals. Foxes, badgers, and hedgehogs are in the ascendency. Our problem in the United States is somewhat different. It appears that the iconography of our currency will be made to climax in images of Donald Trump.” (07/24/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/our-currency-icons-and-americas-national-character/
- The Manufactured “Bipartisan” Push for an AI Kill Switch
Source: American Greatness
by Jordan Schachtel“The AI Kill Switch Act, introduced Thursday by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), seeks to hand the government unprecedented authority to order private companies to throttle, suspend, or shut down products in “kill switch” fashion, purely on their own arbitrary determination, with fines up to $20 million a day. Behind this carefully staged rollout is a fanatical coalition that looks like a broad consensus, but it is mostly one funding network with an arsenal of astroturf organizations at its disposal.” (07/24/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/07/24/the-manufactured-bipartisan-push-for-an-ai-kill-switch/
- Iran War: Yes, We Can Cut and Run
Source: Independent Institute
by Ivan Eland“President Donald Trump’s renewed escalation of the war on Iran is dangerous and needs to be immediately reversed. Investors in the stock market are often advised to admit they bought an investment lemon and cut their losses by selling, thus avoiding further disaster by riding the stock to the bottom and vainly hoping it will rebound. Given human nature, many investors struggle with the first part: admitting they made a mistake. Politicians involved in losing wars often exhibit similar behavior. And President Trump, never wanting to be labeled a ‘loser,’ is particularly prone to such psychological denial.” (07/24/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/24/iran-war-cut-and-run/
- Quagmire of the Vanities
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“Why the world economy is still at risk from the Iran debacle.” (07/24/26)
- Zelensky’s Military Overhaul Explodes Western Fantasies
Source: The American Conservative
by Andrew Day“ver the past week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has faced his biggest political crisis since this time last year. And just as they did back then, Western analysts and media outlets have concocted a pro-Zelensky narrative that downplays evident political dysfunction and misrepresents the struggles for power that are actually driving events.” (07/24/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/zelenskys-military-overhaul-explodes-western-fantasies/
- DHS Ties Homeland Security Grants to Unauthorized Election Mandates
Source: Exiled Policy
by Jayon Pye“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to condition disaster relief grants on whether states change how they conduct elections. It’s another glaring constitutional overreach into an area where states have typically had control, unless otherwise specified by Congress. Earlier this month, DHS issued guidance as part of its funding opportunity for the Homeland Security Grant Program. DHS is requiring states that accept the grant funding to adopt a series of election administration measures.” (07/24/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/dhs-ties-homeland-security-grants
- Aiming at the Gulf, Iran shoots itself in the foot
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Qamar CheemaMir & Ahmad Murtiza“For decades, Iran has sought to diminish America’s military presence and political influence in the Middle East. Yet some ambitions carry within them the seeds of their own undoing. The very policies intended to push out the United States have instead strengthened the rationale for Washington’s continued engagement. Before the erosion of its regional axis, Iran based its security doctrine on forward defense, projecting influence beyond its borders to keep threats at bay. However, what Tehran regarded as a defensive strategy, the Persian Gulf states perceived as an expansionist bid for regional primacy. As a result, they deepened their security ties with Washington, making the U.S. military presence more indispensable to Gulf security rather than less.” (07/24/26)
- Israel in Crisis: A Threat from Within
Source: Informed Comment
by Yajov M Rabkin“Montreal (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – ‘If the state sends people, soldiers, for the honor of the state, and they kill people, is that permissible? It is plain murder. They [the government] incite murder. This is what they do. They wage wars not to save lives, but only for the honor of the state. Certainly, this is not new. So, is this permitted? Just to raise the status of the state or something else?’ These are not the words of a left-wing anti-Israeli activist from an Ivy League campus. They were spoken on July 19, 2026, by the 96-year-old Rabbi Dov Lando, a senior member of the Council of Torah Sages in Israel.” (07/24/26)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 349
Source: Unattended Baggage
“Lube up, because oil is going bye-bye.” (07/25/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-349-lube-up-because-oil-is
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 07/25/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Let’s Examine JC Filings of Appeal of the Disaffiliation of the Libertarian Party of NH.” (07/25/26)
- Free Talk Live, 07/25/26
Source: Free Talk Live
“Dave Ridley calls about Venice.AI and open claw. Also, talks about the recent discovery of ‘j space’ :: Sarah in NM calls about Z-trip replacing yellow cab :: 1.15 trillion dollar ndaa merges U.S. and Israel militaries :: Activist opposed to ‘cop city’ development indicted for giving a duress code to CPB that wiped his phone :: Florida pastor sues openAI for bad medical advice :: Major data center complex in Virginia halted after public pushback :: David in NM calls in his usual disjointed style :: Hosts: Stu, Angelo, Riley O’Bill.” (07/25/26)
- The Climate Realism Show, episode 209
Source: Heartland Institute
“Blame Canada! Smoky Skies and Climate Change.” (07/24/26)
- TAC Right Now, 07/24/26
Source: The American Conservative
“The Emerging Bipartisan Anti-War Movement w/Ana Kasparian.” (07/24/26)
- CounterPunch Radio, 07/25/26
Source: CounterPunch
“Freeing Rivers w/ Tara Lohan.” (07/25/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/07/24/freeing-rivers-w-tara-lohan/
- The Tom Woods Show, episode 2781
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“Four Forgotten (or Suppressed) Right-Wing Books.” (07/24/26)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2781-four-forgotten-or-suppressed-right-wing-books/
- Galaxy Brain, 07/24/26
Source: The Atlantic
“Is AI the End of Cheap Tech?” (07/24/26)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/07/why-ai-is-making-things-more-expensive/688055